Lord Carey is wrong: assisted dying is un-Christian

Lord Carey says it would not be ‘anti-Christian’ to change the law (Photo: ANDREW CROWLEY FOR THE TELEGRAPH).

Well, this is both surprising and disappointing: Lord Carey has endorsed the assisted dying bill. It’s surprising because the former Archbishop of Canterbury has long been an advocate of social traditionalism and fostering a pro-life culture. Disappointing because he roots his arguments, imperfectly to say the least, in religious language. He says that opposing the reform would “promoting anguish and pain, the very opposite of a Christian message of hope.” But giving up on an ill patient and helping them to commit suicide is, surely, antithetical to that message, too?

There are plenty of good secular arguments against assisted dying, all of them rehearsed often enough to make it unnecessary for me to revisit them here. I want to address Lord Carey as one Christian to another. First, life is a gift from God: it is not ours to decide when it should end. This is not to say that we cannot make death more comfortable or that we should persevere unnecessarily with “overzealous” treatment if a patient does not require it. But a core principle of Christianity is that life is sacred and should be preserved. Second, our actions as individuals have a wider consequence. In exerting their own legal right to die, an individual might set a precedent whereby others could find themselves compelled to follow suit. It is perfectly understandable that someone with a terminal illness may ask, “Why should I have to suffer?” But we have to recognise that altering the law to suit one set of circumstances could have a negative effect in others. In Belgium and the Netherlands, for instance, assisted dying has become more and more commonplace – even being extended to cases of children.

Put these two points together and you have the perfect combination of orthodox teaching and the concern for social justice. A synergy I’d like to see expressed more often in public. One convincing argument against assisted dying has been put forward by the Christian socialist Giles Fraser, who argues that the concept of “choice” is naïve. Often when people “choose” to die, they do so under a mix of bureaucratic and emotional pressure – and such a “choice” can be a false one: “The moral language of the supermarket has become the only moral currency that is accepted. Which is why, for me, assisted dying is the final triumph of market capitalism: we have become consumers in everything, even when it comes to life and death. And as history demonstrates, the losers in this equation are always going to be the most vulnerable.”

Too true. Look, the reality is that many people are going to desire death and even turn to relatives for help – this is part and parcel of the human condition. Let us not lie to ourselves about how difficult mortality can be or the moral dilemmas involved. But what should society, as a corporate body, say in response? Should it stand back and defend “choice”? Or should it set as its standard the belief that life must be cherished and that the medical authorities must in all instances seek to save it? Is it healthier to live in a society that invests in palliative care or one that quietly, subtly, maybe subconsciously encourages others to remove their burden of existence from the shoulders of other people? It is a complicated, painful debate that should be conducted with recognition of the tragedy it involves. But from a Christian perspective, the answer is clear. Life is life, and we seek a society that cherishes life.